Social Images: Stock Photos as CNFT

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

The Market

Stock images are in high demand from content creators and businesses of all sizes

News outlets and publishers, marketers and advertising agencies, video editors, film and TV production companies, web developers, youtubers and bloggers, social media influencers, and the list goes on and on. Stock images can set the tone for a message and mood setting, and grab potential audiences' attention.

According to research firm "Research and Markets," the stock photography market was worth 4.1 billion dollars in 2020, and could reach as high as 6.4 billion dollars by 2027.

Today, that market is highly concentrated and controlled by two major companies – Getty Images, whose 2021 revenue was estimated at 1.1 billion dollars, and Shutterstock, which generated a revenue of 770 million dollars last year.

The Problem

The world of stock images is a whirlwind of artificial, staged and cliched content. While many researchers suggest that the most demanded and trending content is "realness" - meaning authentic. The supply in the current stock market doesn't answer the high demand of images and most of the good images would be recycled too many times - meaning too many users would use the same image simultaneously. Meanwhile, in social media you can find numerous high quality, authentic, creative images made by real people in real life.

Numerous in-the-moment images from sports, culture, politics and news events are shared daily on social media, and news outlets and publishers would love to get their hands on them.

Plus, social media users are wonderful brand ambassadors – numerus images of products and brands (cars, food, fashion, drinks, etc.) are shared on social media platforms and brands would love to be able to use those images too.

But all those authentic, creative, real-time images aren’t easily accessible, and there’s no easy way to find and purchase social media content.

The Opportunity

The NFT technology can be used to harness the power of social media content and bring it to the stock images industry by monetizing user-generated content on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Tiktok, and more.

Creating a media marketplace that can trade on the blockchain as NFTs between creators and content providers, we can offer a solution for both parties:

• For content creators that need high-diversity, authentic, creative, and real-time images (photos or videos) that can’t be found in the traditional stock-image companies.
• And for content creators – Social Images Marketplace can provide a new passive income stream from the content they’re already uploading to social platforms, by being compensated for every time their image is traded.

Our project can attract an additional market: different potential stock users of all sizes — who aren’t using today’s stock imagery due to its staged content style, lack of supply and creativity, or because social media isn’t accessible.

Those potential clients of stock images are today spending their budgets on producing (photographing, filming, or designing) the images themselves to get the images that work for their needs.

But some might find just what they’re looking for on our platform of Social Images, saving the money they’d otherwise spend on creating the images themselves, and instead buying our project’s images.

How will it work? 

1. Social media users can sell their social media images by signing up to our platform with their social media accounts and granting their consent to upload all of their images to our platform, or just the ones they choose, or just the images they mention @social_images on the social platforms.
2. Media companies, content creators and other buyers will be able to mint this image as an NFT on the Cardano blockchain for a price in ADA and USD, which will grant them the right to use it for their purposes.
3. The image’s original owner will receive royalties as a portion of the fees for each time their image is used in a trade.

Tech:

1. AI-powered image recognition & image quality enhancement technology.
2. Utilisation of activity on social media platforms (Likes, Comments and #hashtags) - for quality assurance metrics
3. Every user will receive 100 Social Images (Si) coins upon registration. Users can invest their Si coins on the images they "like", and earn revenue. (To gain more Si coins, users can either buy or upload images and contribute to the platform)
4. Clients have the option to purchase exclusive ownership of an image via a smart contract on the blockchain.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

By building the Social Images marketplace on the cardano blockchain and offer trading of stock images as cNFT we can:

• Establish cardano as a valid alternative over current centralized providers of stock images
• Provide a new use case for the cardano blockchain, and by that -
• Onboard new users to the ecosystem
• Bring value to businesses and provide an alternate for businesses that don't have a choice but to rely on providers such as Getty Images or Shutterstock.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

1. This project's success is dependent on network effects. Without onboarding the creators that are out there on social media the stock images NFTs buyers will not come, and without the buyers the creators will not have an incentive to join the platform. 

To offset the risk of creating a "ghost platform" we planned a marketing strategy:

First thing after our launch, we'll target some influential media creators

in social media platforms, and encourage them to share their work as NFTs on Social Images Platform—providing us with valuable content

By that we will have a headstart with great images that can be used as stock images, and the network can grow on a solid base.

2. The main source of content for the Social Images platform will be "Meta" company platforms - facebook and instagram. This creates a great risk of dependency on centralized authority that can prevent us access.

To avoid this scenario we are accompanied by lawyers that make sure that we won't violate any terms of use on social media platforms, and will be ready to take legal action if needed.

3. In order to avoid legal rights violations and to make it easier for our attorneys, images from users will initially publish only in the "editorial" section, ( big and profitable section that is only used for content providers but lucks the rights for commercial use )

Then the users will receive an invitation: "Would you like to upgrade this image onto the commercial section? At which point they'll need to answer a set of questions and disclaimers.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

(*We will start our pilot in Israel - our home base where we already have a strong network of social influencers, news publishers, advertisers, graphic design studios and big brands.)

1. Full project discovery:

• NFT token
• contract Marketplace
• smart contracts
• collection Backend services

first 30 days

2 . Recruiting Contributors - we will handpick 1000 active influencers (starting with 5000 followers each) that will contribute at least 2 images each to our platform

30 days

3 . Campaign for potential buyers - (advertising agencies, content creators, marketing & branding industry, website creators, newspapers (printed & digital), bloggers & youtubers, brands (small & big), designers

30 days

Ready to use NFT platform 

total of 90 days from the beginning of development 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

1. Full project discovery - 8000$
2. recruiting our first 1000 social media influencers: - 10$ to each of the 1000 new contributors by trading 2 of their images on our platform - 10,000$
3. Ready to use NFT platform - 8000$
4. Pilot campaign to our potential buyers (advertising agencies, content creators, marketing & branding industry, website creators, newspapers (printed & digital), bloggers & youtubers, brands (small & big), designers. - 10,000$

Total - 36,000

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Amit Saragosi:

• Awarded TV & Film Maker
• Nominated for the Israeli “Oscar” 2019 (Ophir).
• His internationally awarded short movie “Time-catcher” has been used since 2008 as educational material for film schools
• Director of popular children TV shows
• Managed promo departments for Israeli biggest TV channels.
• Edited some of the most successful TV programs in Israel
• Editor and director of premium TV ads for big brands (Google, Alibaba, Mercedes-Benz, Coca-Cola)
• Since 2007 Founder & CEO of a successful video production studio

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amit-saragosi-bba1a3209/

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7631373/

https://www.facebook.com/saragosifilms

Nir Livni

• An experienced and award-winning marketer
• 20 years of experience in senior management positions in leading advertising agencies
• Owner of an advertising and content agency specializing in new media and social networks
• Copywriter, Creative Director and Creative VP for 18 years in the leading advertising agencies
• Has handled dozens of advertising budgets, some of the largest in the Israeli industry
• Won countless awards while managing creative teams and leading dozens of marketing campaigns by the largest advertisers in Israel

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nir-livni-3a804429/

https://livniandfriends.com/

WarmDevs team

Top Rated Webflow experts with turnkey solution from Ukraine.

Services: WebFlow Development, UX/UI Design and Development, Corporate Website Design and Development, Interactive Prototyping.

Webflow in-depth expertise in blockchain, DeFi, and crypto projects allows easy development of NFT marketplace in compliance with any business strategy and further integration into existing IT infrastructure.

WarmDevs team has been working since 2016 and has already accomplished 150 projects.

https://www.warmdevs.com/

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Yes. This proposal is for MVP product. As we grow and scale we will need more funding.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

We will measure and track the project's progress by the amount of registered contributors, the amount and quality of the images added to our platform, the amount of registered buyers, their satisfaction from the project and the project's revenues

Development Milestones:

• UI design screens of the platform
• MVP version of the marketplace
• Registered users 3 months after MVP launch - >1000

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

First phase success will be a working MVP that will be useful for a growing community of photographers, media creators and social media influencers.

After the MVP phase the Social Images project will be a platform for novel business model for media creators. Social Images platform will provide service to media companies and an income opportunity for media creators, will enrich the world of images with creative, authentic and real-time stock images - made by real people in real situations.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

No